The discovery of the new supernova known as SN 2006gy is the first evidence that the death of such massive stars is fundamentally different from theoretical predictions. This discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own galaxy. Scientists believe that the star which exploded in the NGC 1260 galaxy was about 150 times more massive than our own sun, making it very close to the theoretical limit of mass for stars in our universe.
Astronomers think many of the first generation of stars were this massive, and this new supernova may thus provide a rare glimpse of how the first stars died. It is unprecedented, however, to find such a massive star and witness its death. Supernovas usually occur when massive stars exhaust their fuel and collapse under their own gravity. In the case of SN 2006gy, astronomers think that a very different effect may have triggered the explosion. Under some conditions, the core of a massive star produces so much gamma ray radiation that some of the energy from the radiation converts into particle and anti-particle pairs. The resulting drop in energy causes the star to collapse under its own huge gravity.
